


empathy, not sympathy (your shoes hurt the soles of my feet)

by wan (kuro49)



Category: Devilman (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 16:30:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13368657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/wan
Summary: His tears are salty sweet, like blood on his mouth, on his tongue, in his throat, and in the pit of his stomach filling him whole.Or, in time, even the devil falls in love.





	empathy, not sympathy (your shoes hurt the soles of my feet)

**Author's Note:**

> i was spoiled for the ending of this series and i still have 3 more episodes to go but here we are.

 

There is a time and place for everything, even the end of the world has to start somewhere.

Asuka Ryo meets a demon in the Amazon Jungle. Fudo Akira doesn’t run far enough to not be reunited with a childhood friend. And, they go where the neon arrows point.

 

"Does it hurt?" Akira asks, sitting there at his bedside, the night after.

Ryo shakes his head, pointing him to the scatter of very good drugs on the table before smacking Akira's hand away when he tries to sign his cast.

"Does _it_ hurt?" Ryo asks in return, turning the screen of his laptop so Akira can see the video he is editing. So Akira can see himself, transforming under the strobe lights. The music is loud but the screaming is decibels louder.

"It—" Akira starts, stops at a particularly gruesome detail of the video captured and feels hunger itching in the places where horror for the brutality should be. "—It takes a lot of work to keep this body sated."

"What does it want?" Ryo asks, in all seriousness, like he doesn't know the answer while he turns his computer back to himself. Akira leans over to put his head down against the soft sheets of Ryo's bed with a baser instinct to seek out comfort, "What _doesn't_ it want?"

He feels Ryo's hand on his head, his fingers in his hair, the soft drag of his blunt nails against his scalp, and a softer promise of what Ryo is prepared to do. It ceases to be an entity outside of Akira.

"I will give it everything you want."

His body becomes his own.

 

Doom is an impending feeling that takes hold, takes shape, and fails to let go on sheer stubbornness alone. The future here, between them, is infinite even if the truth is not. The truth is absolute and the truth is that the world can be reduced to ashes for a clean slate to take its place.

(And it does, again and again and again with effort each and every time.)

Asuka Ryo meets Fudo Akira on a cliff by the ocean side and the past repeats itself without fail.

The moon pulls, the tides are to follow.

 

Ryo thinks of the runt of the litter that dies. He thinks of the army of ants that gather over the dying until they are dead. He thinks of Akira crying until his eyes are bloodshot and puffy and each breath he pulls into his lungs is ragged and strained, coming out in a shudder, in a wet choking gasp.

He cries and he cries and he cries with his whole body shaking and Ryo cannot look away.

"We all die, Akira." He says in place of something simpler like _don't be sad_. He is six, maybe seven, maybe even eight or nine. "It is a fact of life."

"Are you trying to make me feel better?" Akira asks in a whisper, his voice hoarse from crying so hard and for so long.

"...Do you want me to?"

His face is covered in a mess of tears and snot and Ryo should pull away but he doesn't because Akira is nodding _yes_. Ryo leans over, he presses his mouth to the corners of Akira's eyes, left then right, tastes salt against his lips.

In time, even the devil falls in love.

 

When Akira sees Ryo again, he throws his arms wide open, welcomes him back into his life like it is the natural course of things. He opens up and he admits to him with a steady beat of his heart in the confines of his chest, that he misses him like a phantom limb. Familiarity takes over.

The machine gun is an after thought.

 

“For what it’s worth, Akira.” Ryo says, neutral in the face of what must be sadness but who really knows at this point because even now, Akira chooses to see Ryo as Ryo even if Ryo realizes that he hasn't been just Ryo for a long while now. His mouth is pulled into a thin, flat line. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Akira aches, and it shakes through the marrows of his bones with the thought that he is worth every death on this earth to Ryo. Blood drips, viscous like honey, red and yellow soaking into the soil. And he would be lying if he said that a part of him isn't honoured at the efforts Ryo took to orchestrate something like the total annihilation of humanity.

“You are looking at me like I betrayed you.”

Akira feels too bled out to laugh, he gives Ryo a second and then two until Ryo admits to it.

“Betrayed is a very strong word.”

“There are no words to describe what you’ve done, Ryo.”

He looks like he knows how this ends too, and this, Akira is not surprised.

“No,” Ryo tells him, smile across his mouth, reaching out, hand gentle across Akira's cheek, “I guess not.”

 

Here are the words he purposely chooses not to use: Divine punishment.

It feels like admitting defeat before he has had a chance to show his hand. The future is infinite. The descent into madness is quick, before he gets the chance to drop and roll over, the fire is all consuming and humanity burns bright.

God can be a bitch but so can Asuka Ryo.

 

“I am not sorry if this is what it takes to have you with me.”

His tears are salty sweet, like blood on his mouth, on his tongue, in his throat, and in the pit of his stomach filling him whole. He finds that love is a driving force quite unlike anything else. To feel a thump where he has no heart, a rush of warmth through veins, Ryo presses his lips to the corners of Akira’s eyes for old time’s sake.

“It took the whole world.”

“Like I said, Akira.” He looks at him, unwavering, and Akira is not surprised even if he wishes it was all a little bit different. There is not a shred of shame or regret or a hint of a thought for remorse for what he has single handed caused. “I am sorry that this is what it took but I am not sorry that I did this for you.”

“I didn’t ask for this.” He says.

But Akira still tilts his head to meet Ryo's mouth with his own.

“You didn’t have to.” He replies.

 

Akira doesn’t remember who teaches him the difference but he lives his life in empathy, not sympathy.

He dies at his hand but it is not entirely bad when the reset button is pushed. For once in his life, maybe Ryo can learn this lesson even if he is as unrepentant as they come. 

 


End file.
